


I let him in, oh man, I let him win

by alltoowell



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-11
Updated: 2014-05-11
Packaged: 2018-01-24 08:41:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1598639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alltoowell/pseuds/alltoowell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alana's thoughts over the course of the last two episodes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Don't even look in his eyes; he'll tell you nothing but lies

**Author's Note:**

> First part is 2x10 beginning with the meal (the threesome dream did not happen, okay?) 
> 
> Second part is 2x11. 
> 
> I love feedback, and just general conversations, so don't be afraid to request my tumblr or shoot (hehe) me a message! I'm on the very skirts of this fandom and it's a lonely place! 
> 
> (Unbetaed so apologies in advance)

**“Men appear to me as monsters thirsting for each other’s blood.”**

**(Elizabeth Lavenza, Frankenstein: A Modern Prometheus)**

* * *

 

It wasn’t that she was necessarily suspicious, per say.

 Curious-- that was a better term to describe how she currently felt, sitting across from a Will Graham she did not recognise; to the left of a Hannibal Lecter who, for the first time in the history of their friendship, unnerved her ever-so-slightly.

This dinner, this _situation_ was as strange as it was unpredictable. Alana did not like the undertones of a conversation she knew she was not a part of; she did not appreciate the sly smiles and the charming excuses and the dark glances cast her way; she did not like feeling lies swimming between the three of them, weighty enough to drown her, dampening her fight.

There was no shame in being concerned: Freddie had said so much over the course of the last few months, it stood to reason that every once in a while something might stick with Alana. It was simply... _unfortunate_ that it had to be the most recent theory that captured her attention.

It might have been easier to ignore if she hadn’t already had her own reservations about Hannibal and Will’s relationship. She had sincerely tried to understand; God only knew she hadn’t questioned it nearly as much as she wanted to; she was sure that with time, she even might grow to accept it. Yes, it was odd, and no, it might not have been what she deemed to be healthy, but if she’d learned anything over the last few months it was that her professional judgement was to be taken with a significantly large pinch of salt.   

Freddie’s most recent preoccupation was utterly ridiculous, of course, and the logical part of Alana’s mind urged her to forget the entire conversation. There was an incredibly short list of people she currently trusted, and Freddie Lounds was not even close to being on it.

Hannibal, on the other hand, was at the very top.

She’d even take Will’s word over Freddie’s: it wasn’t even a matter of questioning where her loyalties lay. The woman did not have barriers when it came to piecing together a story that would gain her the attention she craved; Freddie didn’t strike her as the kind of person who was particularly bothered by the truth.

So why did Alana feel suddenly so ominously uncomfortable? Why was there a tightening in her gut; a furious igniting of her instincts? Why did the hair on the back of her neck stand up on ends, her arms line with goose bumps, when Hannibal and Will smiled at her in the same moment? Why was every fibre of her body suggesting this meal was her final warning?

“Cheers to that,” Will said, never once taking his eyes off hers, and she might once have blushed under his gaze, but all she felt now was dread-- knotting together inside her until a tight ball of fear formed where her heart was supposed to be.

She lifted her glass just as Hannibal did; their host-- her boyfriend, although right now, she felt more like a third-wheel than Will possibly could-- smiled, gaze flicking between them both: seductive and sinister all at once.

Alana had no idea what she was toasting to-- doubted she would have even if she had been listening to the latter part of their conversation, because they used casual pleasantries to disguise a code she would rather not distinguish-- but she clinked her glass against theirs nonetheless. The sound echoed long after they respectively pulled back.  

She took a sip of her wine, wondering if it was her imagination that had her tasting blood. Upon second taste, sweetness reassured her, but Alana still did not relax.

* * *

She ought to have been more surprised when Jack played the voicemail of Freddie’s screams.

In truth, she was less surprised than she was sickened. Two days ago, she’d raised suspicions over dinner with Hannibal and Will; mentioned Freddie by name, failed to be dubious about her doubts. Now, Freddie had disappeared, and the two men in her life were sitting in front of Jack Crawford and feigning indifferent innocence.

If Freddie was dead, well then Alana had dug the grave for one of them to dump her in it.

By one of them, she meant Will specifically-- it had been Wolftrap Freddie’s cell had been tracked to, after all-- but the way Hannibal was quick to jump to his defence did not go unnoticed by her either.

There was a point when you had to support your patient, even if no one else would, and under normal circumstances she might have simply dismissed his protectiveness as an indication of his professional desire to help Will: but this was not the first murder either man had been linked to; this was far from a normal circumstance, and Hannibal had crossed the hypothetically ethical line a long time ago.

What was more disgusting was Jack’s willingness to drop the subject. After a brief informal interrogation which Alana deemed to be nowhere near as hostile as they deserved, he dismissed the three of them.

“I’ll give you a call if--” he said, but then he stopped short. He made no attempt to finish or rephrase. His words hung in the air between them, so that it was impossible for anyone in the room to pretend they were not aware of the implication.

Will was the first to leave, with Hannibal closely behind. Alana stayed put, arms folded across her chest, cheeks burning with the effort of remaining composed.

“Aren’t you coming?” Hannibal asked, breaking her from her scattered thoughts. She looked up, and he was holding the door open for her. She could feel Jack starring; could hear his fingers still from tapping as he concentrated on her.

She’d had a thousand things she wanted to say to Jack, constructed over the course of the conversation moments ago, but in that second every single thought vanished. Reality struck, and it occurred to Alana that almost everybody else who had attempted to challenge either Hannibal or Will had wound up dead or in prison: she wanted to get out before she said something she might later come to regret.

With a deep breath that hitched with betrayal, Alana followed Hannibal out of the room without looking back.


	2. all her good advice, but I couldn't see, I was blinded by your lies

Alana hated the way she felt on Will’s front porch, like Judas come to twist rusted nails; hated the way his eyes took her in, with resentment and distrust; loathed the way he spoke to her, bitterness dripping from his voice where there once had been affection.

She could have handled it better. She could have asked him how he was, because he looked a thousand shades of unstable and ill and hurt and haunted. She could have opened the conversation so that it was nowhere near as hostile as he perceived it.

She hadn’t expected him to confess to killing Freddie, but that did not make the fact he very purposely chose not to deny it any easier either. At this point, she’d take the desperate denial he’d displayed in prison over whatever game he was trying to tease her into playing.

His petty remark about Hannibal’s suitability for her had her stomach flipping. She had enough doubt circling her mind right now without Will continuing to contribute to it by relating all of this back to Hannibal.

When he said: “You should be afraid,” Alana had no idea if it was a warning or a threat, and that terrified her most of all. 

She could feel the handgun, hot with insinuation, burning through her glove. Her heart felt like it was in her mouth, and she couldn’t speak around it lodged there.

His words were coming at her fast, tiny bullets of his own that struck harder with each hit. Logically, she understood that he was urging her to protect herself, but it was whether it was from him or Hannibal that she couldn’t quite figure out.

That was the point, obviously. It was purely her decision, if the time came where she was the only one stable enough to make it.

Alana couldn’t help wondering if it was yet another test of loyalties; just another way to mess with her mind.

When Will went back into the house, closing the door on her face, she wondered why she felt weaker with a weapon than she had without one.

* * *

The morning of Freddie Lounds’ funeral, Alana awoke from a dream that entailed Will and Hannibal laughing together; blood on her own hands while they danced around the fact, conversing as though she was not crying between them.

She chose not to read too much into that; knew better than to critique her own psyche, so she got dressed quickly and drove down to the cemetery she’d already printed directions to.

Will looked better than he had the previous day, but that failed to reassure her of anything other than the fact he was very much capable of manipulating her if she allowed him to. As he walked toward her, she suddenly realised what a horrible idea this was.

She hadn’t really come to mourn: she’d come to apologize. No amount of ‘I should have listened to you’’s would resurrect Freddie, but they might relieve Alana’s guilt, might render Freddie’s death as not entirely in vain, and right now that was the best she could offer-- to both herself and the charred corpse being laid into the ground.

As he quickly pointed out, she had of course expected Will to put in an appearance. She hadn’t expected him to stand beside her-- a stranger in someone she might have loved’s skin-- and once again suggest Hannibal’s orchestration; this piece one she could fit perfectly.

Snow crunched beneath her boots as she walked away from him, and she imagined she was breaking apart the remainder of her own ignorance too; her last flakes of innocence dissolving under the weight of her realisations.

* * *

Eighteen hours later she was standing with Jack, her face pale and her throat tight as she looked at the staging of Freddie’s body. Will’s tone as he responded to her almost immediate accusation was one of implied caution: he was all-but ordering her to drop it, for her sake as much as his.

Reluctantly, she admitted it was unlikely the person who killed Freddie had worked alone. Will gifted her with acknowledging this, which was as good as admitting to everything. She held her breath and wondered if Jack was even listening to their conversation; if, like her, he had shut his ears so he wouldn’t have to hear anything else that might hurt; if she wasn’t the most oblivious person in this scenario.

When it occurred to her exactly who had returned to present Freddie like this, tears pricked in her eyes. For the first time in her life, Alana wanted somebody-- anybody-- to tell her she was wrong.

She waited, but neither Jack nor Will made any attempt to correct her veiled but very definite suggestion.

* * *

The gun felt awkward in her hands: too heavy, too weight with responsibility. With one shot, she could end the life of somebody who she’d once envisioned a future with.

She still wasn’t sure which man that might be, only that the other probably wouldn’t be much less deserving of the bullet she could fire.

She’d never properly used a gun before-- had not grown up in the kind of town where fathers felt need to kept pistols for home protection, had never needed to know how to pull a trigger at a moment’s notice, had never needed anything but her voice and logic to keep her from getting hurt-- and she hadn’t planned to start like this, with hands that shook and eyes that saw the burned body of Freddie Lounds as clearly as though the image had been tattooed on the inside her eyelids.

The first three shots were tragically terrible misses. Alana would have laughed, if it were not for the prospect that if this had been the real and final thing she would likely be dead by now.

She tried a fourth time, this time, seeing Will Graham in the place of the target. Hesitation should have crippled her, but he was looking at her the way he had at dinner, on his porch, in the cemetery, and all Alana was capable of feeling in that moment was hurt. She wanted to scream, wanted to blame him because it was easy, because maybe he hadn’t deserved this but goddammit neither had she-- but instead, she took a measured breath and pulled back the trigger, and with penetrating precision, shot a bullet through his heart.

His face twisted in pain, but she blinked him away as carelessly as he had cast her thoughts and feelings.

Then Hannibal was in front of her, and Alana was overcome by rage and terror. She pulled the trigger, but it jammed, so she yanked it again, over and over. Some bullets hit and some missed but she wasn’t concentrating because all she could see was the same man whose hands had caressed her body so many nights with a look on his face that told her everything she’d suspected was true.

She’d been a pawn in his game; nothing more, nothing less. Simply there, toyed with to evoke a reaction, then came the realisation that if he’d indeed won, she’d allowed him to; that she’d played her part exactly as he hoped; a true achievement of his powers of perception.

When she’d run out of bullets, she blinked again, and the target was riddled to two tattered shreds of leather.

With a clearer vision than before, Alana left to buy more bullets.

* * *

She _wanted_ Hannibal to dispel her suspicions, just like she’d wanted Will to tell her she was out of her mind for thinking he had any part in Freddie’s death. She wanted Hannibal’s sweet voice to talk her out of believing the truth she was still trying to ignore. She wanted his kiss to be enough to reassure her. She wanted, most of all, to leave his office feeling filled with certainty instead of drained by doubts.

It wasn’t exactly going well-- they obviously held very different definitions of ‘better’ when it came to expectations of Will, but she was willing to attribute that to professional conflict-- and then he was kissing her hand and this token of intimacy suddenly felt like an intrusion.

He smelt the gunpowder on her skin; every last fraction of hope that she’d been wrong dissolved. He kissed her-- lulling her into a false sense of security, and she might have been naive before, but now every move he made was analysable and laced with guilt until proven innocent-- and outright asked her.

There was no point denying it. Lying only rendered her as bad as him, as bad as Will. She might have been a new kind of oblivious, but she’d be damned before she’d let them lure her to their level; whatever game they were a part of, Alana was done playing.

This time, she was the one to supply the kiss of distraction.

* * *

She went home-- alone, although Hannibal offered her dinner. She chose to decline, not bothering to offer an excuse. He obviously knew why.

She slept on it, or rather, she _didn’t_. The next evening, she sat in Jack’s office and demanded some sort of honesty.

“You’re lying, you’re _all_ lying,” she said, and it was the most open conversation she’d had with anyone in weeks. She didn’t want metaphors and undertones; she wanted the truth, so at least she might know what she was running from.

It was a man’s world, she’d witnessed that first-hand over the course of her life, of her career. Nobody ever questioned why, but Alana was quickly realising it was less to do with tradition and hierarchy than it did the fact men were uniquely skilled when it came to hiding things, while women were content with half-truths and white lies, anything that might not disrupt the delicate spinning of their world.

Manipulation was easy when you had somebody who wanted to see only the best, a feminine quality Alana realized she’d epitomised perfectly and passively.

But she also knew control came from faith. If you loved somebody fiercely enough, if you wanted to believe something-- or, didn’t-- badly enough, you would take what you could in the form of lies, you would mould them to make them something concrete, something real. They might have all played her, but Alana had allowed them to. She’d stood idly by, stepping in only to take sides when she felt she was being pulled in too many directions, stepping back too late to be anything but a passenger in this trainwreck. She’d ignored multiple warnings and her own instincts in favour of obliviousness inflicted by kisses and false feelings.

They couldn’t have had power without her weakness, and if she was dishing out blame, then she had more than enough to accept on her own behalf too.

For right now, she’d settle for blaming Jack: because if it was his fault, then it couldn’t be hers.

He wasn’t saying much in response to her; speaking with detachment while she fell apart in front of him. When he told her had something to show her, the first thought that crossed her mind was that it was another gun.

Well, there _were_ two people she wanted to wound.

* * *

The corridor seemed impossibly long. She doubted the FBI housed their weapons this meticulously. When Jack stepped aside, motioning for her to enter the door he’d opened, Alana had absolutely no idea what she was supposed to expect.

It certainly was not a very _alive_ Freddie Lounds sitting at a desk, smirking coyly and rising as she asked Alana playfully how her funeral was. 

She honestly could not remember ever being so relieved to see anyone in her entire life.

She’d never anticipated she might be anything resembling happy to see Freddie Lounds, but in that moment as tears filled Alana’s eyes, she could have hugged the woman she’d shared a hostile acquaintanceship with at best.

It wasn’t just that Freddie was alive—that Will hadn’t killed her, and therefore Alana hadn’t planted the suggestion—but it was everything she represented: that this was under some sort of control, at least by Jack; that there was safety, even in the midst of such a dangerous war; that the truth could bind people together rather than isolate them; that only one of the men Alana had feelings for was a serial killer.

She took staggering comfort in these small mercies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're interested, I wrote a femme-slashy squeal to this, which can be found here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/1598807/chapters/3401279
> 
> If you've made it this far, thanks.


End file.
